Talent (weight) facts for kids

A talent was a very old unit of measurement used in ancient times. It was mainly used to measure how heavy something was, like gold or silver. Imagine a big jar called an amphora. A talent was usually about the same weight as the water that could fit into one of these jars. This was roughly the amount of water in a cube that was one foot (about 30 cm) on each side.

Different ancient groups had their own versions of the talent. For example, the people of Babylon and Sumer used a system where 60 smaller units called shekels made a mina, and 60 minas made a talent. In Ancient Greece, one talent of silver weighed about 26 kilograms (around 57 pounds). The Romans also had a talent, but it was made up of 100 pounds (called libra), which were smaller than the mina.

Talents as Money

When people talked about a talent as a measure of money, they meant a talent's weight of gold or silver. It was a huge amount! Some experts believe a gold talent weighed about 50 kilograms (over 110 pounds), which is roughly the weight of a person. Others say it was closer to 33 kilograms (about 72 pounds).

How Much Was a Talent Worth?

To give you an idea of how much a talent was worth, let's look at modern prices. In 2018, one kilogram of gold was worth about $41,155. If a talent was 33 kilograms, then one gold talent would be worth around $1,400,116! That's over a million dollars!

Silver was also very valuable. In 2016, a 33-kilogram silver talent would have been worth about $16,500. It's important to remember that in ancient times, silver was often worth more compared to gold than it is today. This changed a lot after new silver mines were found in the New World.

Huge Amounts of Wealth

Ancient stories often mention incredible amounts of wealth measured in talents. For example, King Auletes of Egypt once paid Julius Caesar 6,000 talents of gold. This was to make sure Rome saw him as a "Friend and Ally." In today's money, that would be worth an amazing $8.4 billion!

Later, during the Byzantine Empire, an emperor named Basil II was said to have saved up 200,000 talents of gold. That's an unbelievable amount, worth about $280 billion today! He saved so much money that his government was able to stop collecting taxes for the last two years of his rule.

Talents for Military Pay

Another way to understand the value of a talent is by looking at how it was used to pay soldiers. During the Peloponnesian War in Ancient Greece, one talent of silver was enough to pay the entire crew of a trireme (a type of ancient warship) for one month.

Later, soldiers for hire, called Hellenistic mercenaries, usually earned one drachma for each day they served. This was considered a very good salary back then. A talent was equal to 6,000 drachmas, showing just how much money it was.

The Parable of the Talents

The talent is also mentioned in the New Testament of the Bible, in one of Jesus' stories called the parable of the talents. In this story, a talent represents an incredibly large sum of money, showing its great value.

See also

In Spanish: Talento (moneda) para niños